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Bruce Jacob, Dean Emeritus and Professor of Law at Stetson University College of Law, was presented with the Champion of Indigent Defense Award by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) at its 56th Annual Meeting in San Francisco, Calif. Jacob was formally presented with the award on Saturday at the Association’s board meeting. The Champion of Indigent Defense Award recognizes an individual for exceptional efforts in making positive changes to a local, county, state, or national indigent defense system.

Dean Emeritus and Professor of Law Bruce Jacob.

Over 50 years ago, Bruce Jacob began his career by arguing for the State of Florida in the historic case of Gideon v. Wainwright. While Prof. Jacob argued on the side of Florida then, in the years since he has become one of the nation’s strongest voices advocating for the right to effective indigent defense counsel. As noted by Paul M. Rashkind, a federal public defender in Florida, Prof. Jacob is admired for his candor and his transition from advocate for Florida to advocate for indigent defense. Prof. Ellen Podgor, a colleague of Prof. Jacob, described his dedication to the cause of indigent defense: “He has argued on behalf of an indigent defendant before the U.S. Supreme Court, served on numerous indigent defense initiatives, started legal clinics focused on indigent defense at more than one law school, written articles stressing the importance of indigent defense, and to this day, remains in his office late on many nights writing pro bono habeas petitions and briefs for indigent defendants.”

Prof. Jacob’s contributions to improving indigent defense services in America are too many to list. In the 1960s, as a professor at the Emory University School of Law, he established the Legal Assistance for Inmates Program at the Atlanta Penitentiary. Later, as a member of the faculty at Harvard Law School, Prof. Jacob contributed to the establishment of the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project, an initiative through which students at Harvard Law provided legal services to indigent defendants. Prof. Jacob has written prolifically on the subject of indigent defense, and he made major contributions to the 2009 Report of the National Right to Counsel Committee.

Prof. Jacob regularly provides pro bono representation to indigent defendants. Prof. Joan Catherine Bohl, who has worked with Prof. Jacob on these cases, admired his dedication to his clients: “I have sat with him in his office while he patiently explains an inmate’s case to the inmate by telephone, often for an hour or more. He never gives over-simplified explanations, but he always seems to leave the inmate with a heightened understanding of his situation, and of the range of possible outcomes.”

In notifying Professor Jacob of the award, NACDL president Steve Benjamin said: “You have devoted your career to making the right to counsel a reality in courts across the country and we feel that it is particularly appropriate to recognize your steadfast advocacy on behalf of indigent defendants on the 50th anniversary of the Gideon decision.”